Mary+Thorning

On December 11, 1911, 34-year-old homemaker Mary Thorning underwent an abortion performed by Paulina Bechtel. The Homicide in Chicago Interactive Database indicates that Mary died at the scene that day, but her memorial at Find-a-Grave indicates that she actually died on December 16, leaving behind her husband, John, and daughter, Ruth.

Though Bechtel was identified as a midwife, she was actually a doctor. At that time and place, female obstetricians were often referred to as midwives. Bechtel had already killed Kittie Bassett in 1895, and Ida Henry and Barbara Shelgren in 1900, In both of those cases she had been indicted but not tried.

Bechtel was held by the Coroner's Jury and indicted on January 1, 1912 for Mary's death, but the case never went to trial.

Note, please, that with overall public health issues such as doctors not using proper aseptic techniques, lack of access to blood transfusions and antibiotics, and overall poor health to begin with, there was likely little difference between the performance of a legal abortion and illegal practice, and the aftercare for either type of abortion was probably equally unlikely to do the woman much, if any, good.

In fact, due to improvements in addressing these problems, maternal mortality in general (and abortion mortality with it) fell dramatically in the 20th Century, decades before //Roe vs. Wade// legalized abortion across America.

For more information about early 20th Century abortion mortality, see [|Abortion Deaths 1910-1919].



 For more on pre-legalization abortion, see [|The Bad Old Days of Abortion]

Source: Homicide in Chicago Interactive Database



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